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Foot Work?


Sac Law Man

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While watching myself on video, I have noticed that my steps into and out of shooting boxes is good, but when I'm moving to shoot around a barricade or other object my steps appear to be short stutter steps,and i end up wasting lots of time. I try to come to a stop with strong side foot first ( brake) and then support foot does the final plant. Should my steps be llong smooth strides, use a distance of 4-5 yards, or short steps? Any help or tips would be appreciated.

Edited by Sac Law Man
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While watching myself on video, I have noticed that my steps into and out of shooting boxes is good, but when I'm moving to shoot around a barricade or other object my steps appear to be short stutter steps,and i end up wasting lots of time. I try to come to a stop with strong side foot first ( brake) and then support foot does the final plant. Should my steps be llong smooth strides, use a distance of 4-5 yards, or short steps? Any help or tips would be appreciated.

When approaching a barricade from the rear left or rear right:

  • I plant the left foot first for a right side setup
  • I plant the right foot first for a left side setup

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Good question.

While watching Stoeger's National vid I was struck by how short his steps were and that got me thinking.

A shorter step is less disruptive than a long one, therefore we should be able to recover sooner and shoot sooner...

Something to think about.

Those national stages are traditionally fairly small with 10 feet or so between arrays, and locally we stretch out a lot more than that, so that's something else to think about.

Set up a drill and put a timer on it. That's always the right thing to do.

SA

Edited by Steve Anderson
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When you need to run between positions, run. Any other time when the gun is up and you are either entering positions or actively engaging targets smaller steps cause less disruption.

Watch JJ in this video clip. The first 2 or three steps after leaving te first position are larger but after that they are barely wider than shoulder width. Pay attention to his head throughout and see how much up and down movement you see..

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When you need to run between positions, run. Any other time when the gun is up and you are either entering positions or actively engaging targets smaller steps cause less disruption.

Watch JJ in this video clip. The first 2 or three steps after leaving te first position are larger but after that they are barely wider than shoulder width. Pay attention to his head throughout and see how much up and down movement you see..

That looks like someone pushed fast forward during that run :roflol: . Eveything from the waist up however, barely looked like it was moving an inch or two.

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I'm having the same question with my movement. I also take short stutter steps between positions and it seems to be costing me a fair amount of time, I'm not sure if the short steps are an issue, but my acceleration out of a position and balance moving into a position is weak. I've started doing some footwork drills and plyometrics this weekend in addition to the standard moving into and out of a shooting box drills. My hope is that the movments will eventually become subconcious; at that point we'll see if my stage times show improvement.

Mike

Edited by mjts
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Have you ever shot Outer Limits at a Steel challenge? It is two boxes fairly close together.

Todd Jarett was down here practicing once, and after standing around talking to him for a while he says, "you want some tips on this stage?"

After we were done I showed him how I had been moving between boxes. It was one long step out, and a long crossover step to plant the left foot in box first. I asked if it was the fastest way.

He said that he and other shooters had experimented with that but always found extra shorter steps were giving faster times. One reason was the body and gun doesn't bounce around as much, and settles down faster to break the third shot.

And yes, Todd is that nice. In my mind he is one of the best promoters of the sport.

Edited by JD45
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Another thing to consider is your center of gravity. I played tight end in H.S. football and learned to run a lot of patterns. One of the best "tools" we used was to lower our center of gravity when we wanted to decelerate quickly (like a stop and turn). Its amazing how quickly you can slow down by squatting your knees and lowering your hips. This works equally well in IPSC, especially on field courses when you have a fair amount of distance between shooting positions.

Grunt

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Another thing to consider is your center of gravity. I played tight end in H.S. football and learned to run a lot of patterns. One of the best "tools" we used was to lower our center of gravity when we wanted to decelerate quickly (like a stop and turn). Its amazing how quickly you can slow down by squatting your knees and lowering your hips. This works equally well in IPSC, especially on field courses when you have a fair amount of distance between shooting positions.

Grunt

+1 on lowering the hips and squatting a bit, for better leverage. playing basketball during my younger years helps with my footwork when I begin learning IPSC.

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  • 1 month later...

I was watching the differnt footwork avaiable ..ehehe

the bunny hop, I hope to write right, for short movement

the cross step, to increase the distance

and the move( look for "food for tought" post)

I am working in dryfire on this.

Hope to build my footwork rightly, move fast is the rule.

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Yea me maybe i can get the foot work right. I've just about messed up every other aspect of my shootings. Lol :roflol: :roflol: :roflol:

Edit for spelling. Messed that up too . :roflol:

Edited by a matt
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I don't think the size of the step matters if the gun and the sights are not bouncing. Here is a clip with small steps and some big ones in the same stage. This guy is pretty good.

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The simple answer is often the best:

Whatever gets you out of the first position, into the second and (most importantly) shooting the A's the fastest is what you should do.

I can almost guarantee that trying to plan it out consciously is going to cause problems, barring the ability to walk the stages "perfectly" enough times where it just happens as you planned it without you paying specific attention to your feet.

Otherwise, let your body work it out naturally in practice-- though folks without past athletic experience (as per Grunt's example) may benefit from some cross-training or reading up on the subject. If you will your sights to settle sooner as you're entering a new spot, and focus simply on seeing that happen, your body should figure it out on its own.

The REALLY hard part is learning how much "bounce" in the sights is acceptable on certain targets at certain distances. You'll be amazed what you can get away with...

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  • 4 months later...

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